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Who is this book for?
- People interested in real estate, urban development, and land policy
- Readers who want to understand how power operates and how public works get decided
- Students in urban planning, public administration, and political science
- Readers who like long investigative reporting and biographies
Who is the author?
- Robert A. Caro, American journalist and biographer, known for extraordinarily deep investigation
- Spent seven years researching this book and interviewed more than five hundred people; when the money ran out, his wife Ina sold their Long Island house so that he could keep writing
- The book was published in September 1974 at 1,336 pages and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1975; he then devoted himself to writing a multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson
More by this authorThe Years of Lyndon Johnson (biography series)；Working
Book notes
A Powerful Man Who Was Never Elected
Robert Moses never won a single election, yet for about forty years he directed the construction of roads, bridges, parks, beaches, and housing in New York City and New York State. The question Caro's book sets out to answer is: how did he do it?
The book's central argument is that Moses cleverly used "public authorities," organizations that need no election and are not much subject to democratic oversight, to accumulate more power than elected mayors and governors. At one point he held many positions at once, controlling vast funds and building decisions.
Beginning as an Idealistic Reformer
Jones Beach and the Parkways
The Low Overpasses: A Controversial Claim
The Triborough Bridge Authority: The Treasury of Power
The Cross Bronx Expressway and East Tremont
Cars, Not Mass Transit
The End of Power
A Monumental Work Cut by a Third
Criticism and Debate
Why It Is Still Read Today
Bottles that drifted to this book
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Shang
Shang's reading list
Voyager's Guide
The world
The Sea of Books has 24 real islands, one for each subject. Every building on an island is a book.
What you can do now
- Tap an island on the chart to go ashore
- Tap a building to read the notes on that book
- Meet Shang, the Navigator
Coming soon
- Chapter 2: register as a voyager, sail your ship, collect building badges, send bottles
- Chapter 4: private chats with other voyagers
Symbols
Ship's Registry
Before you set sail, let's get your ship registered.